


Run like the River Red

by chararii



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Violence, Dark, F/M, Gen, Mangekyou Sharingan, Mikoto lives, Uchiha Massacre, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27764173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chararii/pseuds/chararii
Summary: In every person's life, there comes a time where one must make a choice.Mikoto's is between either of her sons, with blood-stained hands and countless universes blooming inside her mind like deadly crimson lilies.In which Fugaku dies first and Mikoto's eyes reshape the world.
Relationships: Uchiha Fugaku/Uchiha Mikoto, Uchiha Itachi & Uchiha Mikoto, Uchiha Mikoto & Uchiha Sasuke
Comments: 7
Kudos: 65





	Run like the River Red

**Author's Note:**

> Not having a lot of time to write. Still, this snuck itself into my head and I really wanted to get it out there. Those Uchiha moods really hit different.

Love is a dangerous thing. It gives rise and fall to the best and worst in people, creates monsters and saints alike, shifts the very balance of existence. Mikoto has always known this, much like any other son and daughter of the house of Uchiha. It is the first lesson they are taught when they are young, amidst incense, smoke, their parents, and their elders.

Tales of Izuna and Madara serve as word of inspiration as much as caution. Strive to be the best you possibly can and do your ancestors proud. But never forget what their devotion has wrought, how their undying love for another caused chaos and death. The Uchiha are proud of who they are just as, deep down, they are terrified of the monster that lurks beneath the surface. They are capable of unspeakable horrors and it is important, both for the village and the future of their clan, to always – always – keep it under wraps.

Mikoto's control is exceptional. She is strong and talented, but those qualities are not why she had been chosen to marry the Uchiha's most exalted scion. No, Mikoto has a gift unlike any other. Her love runs deep and steady, a calm presence to temper the hatred that gradually clouds the hearts and minds of those surrounding her. Mikoto loves but she never hates. It is what is needed for the future of the clan so when the time comes she bows her head, speaks the words and ascends from the daughter of a minor clan member to the very matriarch herself.

Her gift does not get passed on to her eldest. In the presence of the clan elders, her own family and her husband by her side, Mikoto is the only one who can look at her son and know that he is not like her. It matters little, in the grand scheme of things. Whatever Itachi _could_ have been, matters little.

Expectations and demands twist his gentle soul, one that is more like Mikoto's than Fugaku's, into a cold and lonely place. Itachi has no passion, no desires, no light in his eyes. She loves him all the same, does what she can to be the shield between a young boy and the weight others place on his back.

Her second-born on the other hand... Mikoto holds the newborn, whispers his name – Sasuke – in his ear and feels the same steady current running through his body she has been so in tune with all her life. He is like her in a way Itachi never was, never has been. He, Mikoto realises, for all his faults, for all that he is not as talented as his brother, is the true hope of the clan.

Mikoto, who has seen what that hope has done to her eldest, shuts her mouth and holds her tongue. If Sasuke is to grow up to be the man he needs to be, he needs to do so out of their sight under her own gentle guidance. Sasuke is the spare so it is of no further interest what she does with him. In short, it is just how she likes it.

Still, the days grow darker and the nights colder as all of them can see what looms on the horizon. It is not Mikoto's place to be the voice of reason, preach temperance. So she isn't. She sits back and waits instead and it proves to be the biggest mistake of her life.

Or, perhaps, the single most important decision any Uchiha in history has ever made.

They know their end is imminent. After all, they trained him to be quick, silent and efficient. Their compound is dark and quiet yet Mikoto can smell the death and blood while sitting on the floor, holding her husband's hand, eyes shut. There is no panic, no fear, no urge to try and avert what is heading right towards her in this very moment. Mikoto is an Uchiha and the Uchiha never run from death.

She doesn't hear him enter but knows her oldest son inside out. The air shifts ever so slightly and while Fugaku takes a second to recognise the presence for what it is, Mikoto doesn't. He reeks of blood despite being clean. Itachi is, if nothing else, an excellent killer. Deep within herself, Mikoto finds a sliver of pride and holds onto it with all her might.

“You will not resist?” he asks, voice detached and so dead inside Mikoto's heart weeps. She exhales slowly, lowering her head ever so slightly. She tried her best. She might have failed him, failed the child that was taken from her in all but name but heavens be her witness, she _tried_. Not as much as she could have. Not as much as she should have.

“We will not cower.” Steel and fire rest in Fugaku's voice that fan Mikoto's own flames. She straightens her back, lets the regrets wash away. She might not have done all she wanted with her life but this is her place and she will fulfill her last duty to the clan. Even if that duty sees her perish at the hands of her own son.

When warm red splatters onto her bare skin and the door in front of her opens to reveal large dark eyes and a face so twisted in horror she can barely recognise it, Mikoto's composure crumbles and shatters.

“...brother...?” He's not supposed to be here. It's all Mikoto can think as sticky liquid drips from her fingertips and her husband's body falls to the floor with an audible thud. She smells the blood, feels the pool rapidly expanding to her right touch her, soak her dress. Yet all she can focus on is her youngest, her treasure, the light of her life.

Sasuke doesn't move. He's frozen, paralysed, as white as a ghost and Mikoto can see the trauma settling in, sees the terror and devastation punch through the shell she had built around his precious mind to take it and tear it down with the might of a waterfall.

She barely registers that she's not dead, that Itachi is still there, that Sasuke is vulnerable and young, scared, terrified, in mortal danger, hewasn'tsupposedtobehere _whatifItachidoesn'tsparehim_ -

“m...mama...?” Her breath runs short as her sight dims and Mikoto doesn't feel the steel resting against her neck, about to cut through and plunge Sasuke's life into irreversible chaos. He can't, not him, anybody but him, he is needed, he matters, _he is their only legacy_ -

Mikoto loves her clan, her husband, her eldest, but nothing, _nothing_ in this world or any other could ever hope to match the burning wildfire in her heart that flares and rages when she looks at her most precious of treasures, her baby, the only one who ever mattered-

“I am sorry.” Itachi's words are little more than a whisper among crackling flames that overtake Mikoto's entire being as she stares at Sasuke and stares and stares and stares-

Steel glints in the low moonlight shining through the crack of the door as the blade is raised before coming towards her, sailing through the air, about to hit its mark-

Before it does, Mikoto's world goes up in flames and three tomoe shift and change shape as they merge into perfect, resplendent flower petals.

She was never meant to be who she is. Never meant to be one of the exalted few who are capable of evoking their clan's greatest powers. Before she married her husband, Mikoto was a nobody. Their marriages are chosen and selected with utmost care to ensure their lines remain strong so one clan head becomes even more powerful than the last.

It's not meant to be Mikoto. It never has been.

Blood falls from her eyes and runs down her cheeks as she _screams_. The agony is beyond words. Knives stab inside her mind, pierce through her skull, blind her with pain so immense the world around her shifts out of focus. She cannot see, hear or feel, isn't aware of Sasuke's wails, the way Itachi is frozen in shock, the blade long since fallen from his hands.

Mikoto sits on her knees, eyes wide and red, black twin lilies spinning and spinning and spinning-

Much like the flower her eyes have become, her inner sight unfolds and blooms, takes what she has known all her life and splits it in two, then four, eight, sixteenthirty-twosixty-four _infinity_ -

And suddenly, the world falls silent. She doesn't scream any longer, the pain is gone without a warning, leaving behind an empty and deafening numbness. Her mouth falls open as she stares at nothing, is blind to her surroundings as she sees...

_Everything._

Their gifts are numerous. Plentiful. Strong, diverse, wondrous. No two eyes are the same. And yet, nobody has ever had a gift quite like Mikoto's.

Translucent, shimmering and reflecting light, breaking it, turning the universe into one of rainbows and shells, perfect iridescence. Waves and threads shift and drift through Mikoto's inner sight, form into bubbles and mirrors that show her everything, everything and _more_.

She sees a time and place in which Kushina is alive and happy. The next mirror shows her own face, one that is grey and ashen and dead before cracking only to be replaced by another. This one has her healthy and beautiful with a disturbingly familiar hat on her head.

Her universe is one of countless mirrors that stare back at her as she watches and comprehends, faced with every single reality that has been, is, could have been, is still very much possible. She watches as Itachi slaughters the clan over and over again, observes her own dead body fall to the floor, sees Sasuke grow up lonely and bitter, so full of hatred, destroyed and robbed of who he was always meant to be-

The tiny part of Mikoto that is still aware, what little is not consumed by the powers that rest inside her skull, knows what she has been given. Knows what power she holds in her hands, how she is the one who can unmake this disaster, can take what is and turn it into what she wills it to be.

Knows that she has the opportunity to play God.

Her gentleness would have held her back, once. Her innate calm, the peace in her mind, the readiness to accept her fate, lay down her head and rest. But now that her control has shattered, the dam has broken, now that she has surrendered to what has always been lying in wait, resting inside her blood-

Mikoto focuses on Sasuke with all her might, recalls his dimpled grin, the warmth in his eyes, the love in his heart. She thinks of sunny days, their own private lessons, remembers turning his face away from the shadows and towards the sun over and over again.

The mirrors shift, some shatter, others reform from the remains as Mikoto watches how Itachi kills them all, plants the seed of hatred into his own brother's soul and how Sasuke falls without anyone to pull him up again. Sometimes he dies at the hands of another. Other times, at his own. Rarely, he survives and his fractured mind and broken heart find solace in the embrace of Kushina's son and Mebuki's daughter.

It is not what she wants for him. None of this is. It is, Mikoto decides, unacceptable. No matter how long she searches, it seems Sasuke is forever doomed to be burned and reborn from his own ashes. And she won't have it. None of it.

An Uchiha's love is a terrible thing. A mother's, even worse.

When she finds what she is looking for, Mikoto nearly cries in relief. She holds onto this mirror, the only one of its kind, that shows both of them. Sasuke is happy and whole, the sun Mikoto always wanted him to be. She herself seems older and darker, but that matters little to Mikoto. She would give herself for her son. Always.

She stares into the mirror as the image regresses, Sasuke turns smaller and younger, time passing in reverse. Days, weeks, months, years roll by before her vision until there he is, little Sasuke, staring at his dead father on the floor, his bloodied mother next to him, and his elder brother looming above them with red dripping from his sword.

What happens next nearly has her drop the mirror. Mikoto's heart stills as does her breath. Before she does anything else, she grasps her memories of Itachi and _hunts_. But what she longs to find, the one chance she discovered for Sasuke to thrive... there is none for her eldest.

Darkness, violence and death, either swift or slow, is all that has ever been waiting for Itachi. He cannot be redeemed. He cannot live. He can never, in any of the infinite realities Mikoto has access to, become more than a villain, a monster, or a martyr. He is lost to her. More than she had ever believed possible.

Perhaps there was a reason he never inherited her gift. Perhaps Itachi has always been meant to die.

Her heart aches and her soul burns but there is no other way. She knows this. Mikoto weeps as she digs her fingers into the only mirror worth keeping. She cannot save both of them. Despite the power she has gained, she cannot create a perfect world. All she can do is make the best of the ones that already exist, side by side, running in infinite parallels.

This is her duty, she reminds herself. And duty has never been kind.

She blinks and lets go, closes her eyes, returns to her reality with none of the screaming she has entered it with. Mikoto doesn't need to make sure to know she has lost her sight. Such is the fate of those who wield the mangekyou. And one like hers... Mikoto would be blind forevermore but the vision she has gained in return is worth a thousand eyes.

“...not worth killing.” She regains awareness just in time to feel the chakra next to her roil. She's not sure why she is still alive, why her son hasn't struck her down yet. Mikoto doesn't allow herself to linger. She knows what must be done. No matter how terrible. This decision will haunt her for the rest of her life.

It is with that knowledge in mind that she rises up, faster than her own son whom she loves so very, _very_ much, tears the blade from his hand and plunges it straight into his heart.

“BROTHER!”

Sasuke's wail etches itself into her memory as does the feeling of warm sticky blood splattering onto her already stained hands, accompanied by a soft gasp from a boy who is silent even in death.

“I love you,” she whispers as tears stream down her cheeks and she gently lowers her son's still body onto the ground, right next to his father's.

Mikoto doesn't allow herself to fall into despair, turns away from the worst of crimes she has just committed, catches Sasuke before he can run to his brother's corpse. She holds him as he cries and screams, wails and howls, lets his small fists strike her shoulder over and over again. Mikoto doesn't say anything as she waits for the ANBU to swoop down upon the compound, keeps Sasuke in her arms like a prisoner as her tears soak the back of his shirt.

Even when they find them and question her, she never once turns her blind eyes in the direction of the two bodies behind her. Instead, she digs her nails into Sasuke's shoulders so much he bleeds, bites her teeth and dries her tears.

It was her duty, she would later say. She did what had to be done. They try to take Sasuke away, only once. They don't try again.

She stands on the edge of the compound with Sasuke's tiny clammy hand in hers, blind to what's around her yet open to the infinity that lies past her eyes. She sees the man with her clan's eyes in his arm, what the village has done to every Sasuke that is not this one, how the world at large failed her blood and her family, how she had been forced to kill her eldest child to save her youngest.

She wanders Konoha and vows that for Sasuke, if need be, she will make its streets run like the river red.

**Author's Note:**

> Mikoto gets to be op just like everyone else. Equal opportunity, yay.


End file.
